B2B are Socializing

At the time, I wrote about the benefits of having a blog as part of the business interface with your customers and the relation between blogging and churn.

The trend, fortunately, is growing, and according to a recent survey by BtoBonline, is even expected to grow also in B2B sectors.
"The survey found that 19.8% of marketers are currently using social media as part of their marketing strategy."

I believe that the social media still lacks the business approach and that Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and even LinkedIn are still not a complete answer for their needs. However, it's great to see that business are starting to use the social media to do business, not just by having a branded website but showing that, even in B2B, what matter most are the people behind the B.

Technorati Tags: bizdev, business development, Facebook, LinkedIn, Media, social media, Strategies, Survey, YouTube

Getting Great Feedback

A few days ago I decided to check up some tools for improving my project management efficiency and I stumbled upon a cool application called SharedPlan.
After installing the free, lite version, and playing with it a bit, I found it great.
However, from time to time I noticed a bug so I decided to drop it.
Then when I checked my emails, I found the usual "thank you for trying our software, we'll be happy if you can provide us with feedback" email from SharedPlan.

So I decided to be a "good samaritan" and answered them back, describing the bug that I found.

One hour later they answered, thanking me for providing them with feedback, and a proposal: tell us how you found the bug, and if we squash it, you'll get a free license to our full product (worth $200).
So I did, and 4 hours later they answered: thanks to you we managed to find the bug and fix it! here's your code for the free subscription. Cool right?

Well, I'll review the SharedPlan software when I get to know all of its features better, but here are some tips to take from this story into your feedback process:

MishMash

Cooperations are a key factor for any Internet company that wishes to grow, and this simple insight became an integral part in the Web2.0 world in the form of mashups.
This interesting method is another business development venue that companies should pursue when thinking about cooperations, especially when mashup "platforms" (meaning products that are pre-built in a way to integrate other product into them) are getting more and more popular. Some examples for those platforms are Yahoo! Messenger, MySpace, and many more.

The great stuff about mashups and cooperations is that it focuses both companies on "what's in it for the users" and not just "what's in it for us".
Take this one as an example: Netvibes & Babylon.
What's in it for them?
Babylon's product needs to be distributed. Instead of taking yet another traditional distribution channel that costs you ads planning, making, administrating, or long, expensive hours on crafting cooperation agreements (trust me, i've been there...) they chose to let the users try out the product. But not in the usual means of 30 days trial but rather to let the users try key functionalities of the product in the environment they are already using. So what's in it for them? more users try, more users buy, less money spent on distribution channels. True, it probably required them to develop that piece of code to fit into Netvibes but it's a relatively low-cost one time effort.
Netvibes, being mainly a content mashup platform (and a great one!), gave their users a richer experience and a feature that is not just another content but a tool that helps the users read the content. Therefore, users are more satisfied, stay longer,and start perceiving Netvibes as a content system (and not just an aggregator).
What's in it for us (the users)?
Well, as a Mac user, who uses Netvibes on a daily basis, I set Babylon's widget on my main page. When Babylon will have a Mac version I'll seriously consider buying one.
What's your favorite mashup?

Technorati Tags: Babylon, bizdev, business development, Case Study, Mashup, Netvibes, cooperation, Strategies

YouTube & Chelsea - Business Development Tornado

Reuters reports that "English soccer champions Chelsea have signed a deal to show archive footage and daily news on the popular video-sharing site YouTube, becoming the first Premier League club to do so."
And I add - this is surely not the last deal of this kind that we are going to see from the video-giant and it's rivals(?) in the near future. YouTube's true potential (at least the short term one) is concealed in finding those interest specific groups within their huge audience, and offer them a better experience outside of their "natural habitats" (in this case - chelseafc.com ).

Technorati Tags: bizdev, business development, Case Study, Chelsea, content deals, Deal Strategy, Geoffry Moore, inside the tornado, Strategy, YouTube

Passion

In a recent post, Guy Kawasaki did his famous 10 questions, this time with no other than Donald Trump.
Now, one can argue about Trump's business style (and hair...) but one thing that he said summarizes the core of success, and it shows that he lives up to it (quote from the interview):
"Question: TV is TV, real life is real life: What’s the most important real-life advice you can give to an entrepreneur?

Answer: You have to love what you do.
Without passion, great success is hard to come by. An entrepreneur will have tough times if he or she isn’t passionate about what they’re doing. People who love what they’re doing don’t give up. It’s never even a consideration. It’s a pretty simple formula."

When I meet with entrepreneurs, this is one aspect that I'm trying to figure out. How much passion they have for their product? Is it something that is part of their life?
Passion alone will not get you to success, but lacking it can surely prevent you from it.

I would add that on top of loving what you do, you must be able to pass on your passion into your product, and from there to the users.
The web is full of great examples for that: Pandora is all about music-passion, Flickr is picture sharing passion, and digg is info-passion.

What's your (product) passion

Technorati Tags: methodology, Passion, entrepeneur, Success, Trump